Blood Pressure-Lowering Mechanisms of the DASH Dietary Pattern

Table 5

Simple regression of SBP changes on changes in individual biological and vascular variables at week one.

Variable	Week one
	Slope	𝑃 value
Urinary sodium	0.123	0.030
Urinary potassium	−0.194	0.018
Urinary sodium/potassium ratio	1.987	0.003*
Urinary norepinephrine/creatinine	−685	0.197
Urinary epinephrine/creatinine	−2256	0.376
Plasma renin activity	−15.80	0.0003*
Plasma aldosterone	−0.473	0.312
Plasma nitrite after hyperemia, %	−0.301	0.035*
Brachial artery flow-mediated dilation	0.021	0.982
Augmentation index, %	0.736	0.174
Pulse wave velocity, m/s	−0.184	0.905

*Since urinary sodium and urinary potassium are closely related with urinary sodium/potassium ratio, only urinary sodium/potassium ratio, plasma renin activity, and % change in plasma nitrite after hyperemia were further included in a multivariate regression model. All three variables remained significantly associated with SBP change at week one (𝑃<0.05 for all).